Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-12-26
CHRIST'S BIRTH.
The Story of the Nativity Told by
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage--The
Advent of the Redsemer of
Mankind on Earth.
HsM Childhood and Motherhood Were
Honored; the Cradle Msde to Mean
Mere Than the Grave.
aow the Child OF To Day is to Settle all
Destinies and Usher In tho Worlds
Salvation or Destruction,

,,seial to the Gazette.
BROOKLYN, N. Y, Dec. 25.-Services
I.,-dsY at the Brooklyn Tabernacle were
ubiIant. Professors Browne and Ali,
With organ and cornet, were unusually
powerful, and Mrs. Florence Rice-Knox
ang three solos. TIE thousands of peo-
pie who packed he church and ell the
approaches, seemed to join in the great
chorus:
He shall reign from pole to pole
With ilimitable sway;
BE shall reign, when, like scroll,
Yonder heavens have passed away.
4 Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D., took
Is the subject of his sermon, "The Barn
Ind Its Surroundings" His text was
3sken from Luke II. ID: "rhe shepherds
laid one to another, let US now go even
Into Bethlehem, and see this thing which
i come to pass" DR.. Talmage said:
/ One thousand years of the worlds ex-
IstenCe rolled painfully and YEARLY
hong, and no Christ. Two thousand
hears, and no Christ. Three thousand
hears, and no Christ. Four thousand
fesrs, and no Christ. "Give US 6
Christ" had cried Assyrian and Persian
! md Chaldean and Egyptian civilizations,
! but the lips Of the earth and the lips Of
lie sky made no answer. The world had
@siTesdy been sffiueuG CT genius. Among
poets had appeared Homer aud Thespis
3snd Aristophanes and S0pbocles and Eu-
3-ipides aud Alexis H chylus, yet no
Christ to be the most poetic f. ure Of the
centuries. Among historians had ap-
peared Herodotus and Xenophon and
mi Of from ,b1y
history was TO date backward and for
wsrd-B. G. and A. D. Among conquer
ors C,millus and Manlius and Rsgulus
and Xantippus and Hannibal and Scipio
and PJmpey and Caesar, yet no Christ
+ who wss TO be the conqueror of earth and
I heaven.
But the slow century and the slow year
! and the slow month and the slow hour at
! last arrived. The world had had mathis
or concerts in the morning and vespers
OF concerts in the evening, but now it is
to have concert at midnight. The black
window shutters Of December night
we're thrown open, and some of the best
singers of world where they all sing
stood there, and putting back the drapery
= Of cloud chanted peace anthem, until
al the echoes of hill and valley applauded
snd encored the Halielujsh chorus.
Al last the world has a Christ and Just
The Christ it needs. Come, Let US 90 into
: that Christmas scsne as though we had
never before worshipped at the manger.
Here is q Madonna worth looking at. 1
wOn' r not that the most frequent name
In sill lands and in ali Christian centuries
is Mary. And there are Marys in palaces
snd Marys in cabins, and though German
aud French and italian and Spanish and
English pronounce it differently, they are
= lll
NAMEsAKEs OF THE ONE
whom we find on bed of straw with her
psIe face against the soft cheek OF Christ
in the night Of the Nativity. All the great
painters have tried on canvass to present
Mary and her child and the incidents of
that most famous night of the worlds
history. Raphael in three different mas
terpisCes, celebrated them. Tintoret and
Guirlsndjo surpassed themselves
In the Alteration Of the Magi.
COuegio needed to do nothing
more than his Madonna to become I'M
mortal. The Madonna of the Lily, by
Leonardo da Vinci, will kindle the admir-
alton Of all ages. Murillo never won
greater triumph by his pencil than in his
presentation of the Holy Family. But all
the galleries of Dresden sre forgotten
when think of the smsll room of that
gallery containing the Sistine Madonna.
Yet all of them were copies of St.
Matthew's Madonna, anG Luke's Ma
donna, the inspired Madonna Of the Old
Book, which we had put into our hands
When ne were infants and that We hope
10 hiVe under our heads when We die.
Behold, in the first place, that on the
IRIS. night Of Christ's life God honored
the brute creation. You cannot get into
That Bethlehem barn without goil e past
me csmels, the mules, the dogs, the oxen.
The brutes of that stable heard the first
cry OF the infant Lord. Some of the old
painters represent the oxen snd camels
kneelng that night before She newborn
osoe. And well might they kneel. Have
you ever thought that Christ came, among
ot1er things, 10 alleviate the sufferings OF
Inc brute creation? Was 1t not appropri-
ave that he should during the first few
days srd nights of His life on earth be
surrounded by the DUMB beasts whose
No'n and plant and believing have fol
sges been
PRAYER TO GOD
lof the Srrestipg of their lortures and the
ilghtlng Of their wrongs? It did moi
merely happen so"that the uniptelligeni
creatures Of God should have been thai
gight in close neighborhood. Not q
Lehnel in aIl the centuries, not birds
aesli not WORKOUT horse on towpath
aOta herd freezing in the poorly built
@S-pen, not a freight Car in summe
'ue bringing the beeves to market with
u water through thousand miles OF
sonyI not surgeons room witnessing
struggles of fox or RABBIT or pigeon
cog in the horrors of vivisection. but
30 interest IN the fact that Christ
& born in a stable surrounded by
luEes. He remembered that night, anc
prayer He heard in their pitiful moan
Will answer in the punishment o.
use who msltrcat the dumb brutes
10y surely have as much right In thiE
'Tnn IS We have.
II Tue first chapter of Genesis you may
that they were placed on TIE
E1 before man was, the hsh ane
IN! created the fifth day, and TINT
ussoiuped the morning Of the sixth day
man not until the afternoon OF tina
H ny. The whale, the eagle, the lion, sno
1e lesser creatures of their kind were
euecessors of the human family. TneI
o ,e tne world by right of possession
es nave also paid rent for the places
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